Is Your Content King, or Queen?
Let’s be honest, a horrendous amount of blogs out there are absolutely trash, we all know that. But what is it that makes them so bad? Why is it, that out of the millions and millions of blogs, there are only a handful we care to read? Is it just merely our lack of time? Possibly. In many cases though, it’s more than that.
Almost every blog has the potential to reach a level where it’s fairly popular (around 500 uniques per day). With a lot of networking, making friends, leaving comments, and posting on a regular basis, this is very achievable after a number of months.
To get to such a level, and sustain it, still is a commendable achievement. But let me share something with you. You could get there, even though the quality of your posts is very mediocre.
Your posts may be your secondary value
Allow me to be even more frank — the vast majority of ‘good’ blogs, offer a very average level of quality in their posts. So why do around 500 people visit their blog daily? Well, for many reasons. In fact, I guarantee you that there are some blogs you visit, and it isn’t really to do with the quality of their posts. Maybe you’re good friends; maybe they’ve switched off NoFollow; Maybe they offer regular contests; or maybe they’ve just got a name for themselves, and there is something about them you like.
Is there a problem with this? Not at all. For some reason or other, even though the quality of posts on offer is generally ‘average’, the blog offers you some sort of value, and that’s why you keep returning.
But this is what separates the average bloggers, from the ProBlogger’s — the level of value that is presented to the visitor.
Separating the men from the boys
Why is it that Scobleizer, O’Reilly, Smashing Magazine, Micro Persuasion, and Steve Pavlina get huge traffic volumes? Is it because they have flashy designs, comment on 100 blogs every day, run the Top Commentators plugin, and organise competitions every week? No, it’s because their offered value is focused on their content.
Ask yourself this question dear reader — would you read your blog for its content alone?
If you’re content with your few hundred visitors everyday, then keep commenting, emailing, and ‘flattering’ your visitors. If you want more, then quit trying to win people with your loveable online character, and just post original, dynamic, effective, and practical content.
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26 Responses to “Is Your Content King, or Queen?”
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I agree. I realize that there are a few blogs I read because I know the people writing them or simply because they get the information first- not because they have great writing.
I can’t agree more. My blog is just a few months old and all along I’ve tried to concentrate more on the content than anything else.
Of course, one needs to take some efforts to spread the word about ones blog. How else would anyone know that your blog exists.
Jake - I think we’re all in the same boat.
Suresh - Yeah, it’s getting the balance right, isn’t it? I just think many of us spend too much time commenting, and if we spent more time on well thought posts, we would offer a lot more value to our visitors.
This really is a great post. One of the best I’ve read that gives merit to the social network aspect of blogging and the timing is perfect.
David Meerman Scott recently listed and linked about 100 people he says either contributed to or influenced his new book. Its the subject of my post tomorrow. And this post really drives home the merit of a solid mix, with the emphasis on content.
Now there’s the truth of it. Good unique content is the way to go, irregardless of the subject. There is nothing better than content that’s worth the read. Is mine? Only time and better health will tell.
Good content is great, but much more needs to be done for people to find it.
Richard & Kirk - I really appreciate the comments; it helps to make the effort feel worthwhile.
Terry - You’re absolutely right, and when someone with one of the most popular blogs around, comes and comments on your blog, you can’t help but feel you’re doing something right
More seriously though, I concur 100%. Which is why I make a considerable effort to build relationships with other bloggers. I’m just trying to make sure my main focus is still my content though.
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Armen, you are stating the obvious, but like common sense
Patsi - There’s nothing new under the sun, and I’m glad you’ve learned the importance of what I’ve addressed. However, thousands of people are taking up blogging everyday. They need taught, and the rest of us need a little reminder now and again.
Reminders are always needed…just like everything else, familiarity and complacency always sets in and things begin to get missed. It’s the “Oh yeah…right!” syndrome.
I do apologize ahead of time for the long comment here. This budding conversation was just too good a chance to pass up.
Anyway…
I do agree that new bloggers should have ready access to “basic things you really should know” type of info that will start them off on the right path. What the new blogger does after that info is absorbed is up to them of course. And much of that info is still widely scattered throughout the web. The question is, how does the new blogger even know what info they need to find? For example:
SEO? (ton of stuff there)
Quality content?
Community?
Metrics?
Showing readership appreciation (comment replies,
comment subscriptions, do-follow, comment editing ability etc)?
It comes down to the fact that the brand new blogger, these days, knows as much about the art of blogging when they first start out as they know what kind of info they need and where to look for it—not much. There’s a huge amount of info that a new blogger who wishes to “make good” needs to find and it can be a long process with no road map to turn to. Search engines are the closest thing and it’s still a lot of “poke and hope” even today.
I know there are folks out there that try their best to help the “newbies” through the rough beginnings. Heck, I’m one of them and I was helped when I first began but it was through meeting other experienced bloggers who offered their assistance, not by finding the info by searching the Internet for it.
In many ways, today’s blogosphere reminds me of the age old network of Ham Radio which is still as strong today as it always was. Even more so. A huge community of folks helping out other folks and teaching new operators the tricks of the trade. This community, unlike the blogosphere however, is decades old and all the info a “newbie” needs has long been structured and centralized. I believe today’s blogosphere will go that way also, given enough time.
No answers here, I’m just adding to the conversation. And as usual, I have a bad habit of being wordy…sorry about that.
Kirk - Now there is one way to get yourself attention!
What you’ve written is so true. Would you like to see me address simple things here? I don’t care too much about being criticised for stating the obvious, if it’s a help to someone. I mean, who needs more help, the newbie, or the guy with 2000 RSS subscribers?
What do you think is the best way of “offering assistance”?
P.S. Sorry for the slow response, I’ve been working on a WordPress theme.
Ah, now that’s the question isn’t it?
And don’t worry about the slow response. I know all about it.
The problem as I see it is that the blogosphere simply isn’t mature enough yet to be anywhere near the term “organized”(the entity, not the blogger’s themselves). The blogosphere will eventually be able to take care of itself as in “self policing”, unwritten rules of conduct that are globally accepted with well laid out information for the new blogger. And that information will end up in a more or less centralized location for all levels of learning from the newbie to the the so-called “Pro”. This has already been proven to happen and that it works well but it will take time as the blogosphere and the technology that runs it evolves.
Sheesh, here I go again…Beware the wordy bas****!
Newbie or the 2000 RSS guy? They both could need help but on different levels. What you decide to address depends on what kind of audience you wish to reach and it’s not easy when you go looking for it.
For myself, I found that my metrics system (Pmetrics)clued me in on a lot of what folks were looking for when they came to my blog. That plus the ton of emails that were sent back and forth when I began helping out “newbie” WP bloggers who had decided to “host their own”, from square one to getting their new WP blog online. Step by step. Suffice it to say I had found my “audience”. I’m currently working on a new “sub-site” that will guide these new WP bloggers from start to finish called “Absolute Beginner’s Wordpress”. When they come to the end of the series, they’ll have a brand new bouncing baby blog with the essential plugins installed, basic know how on how to maintain and update the thing and the basic do’s, don’t’s and “you really need” type info.
Now what is needed is a blogger with the necessary experience to take these new WP blogger’s to the next level (which would be?). Once this was established then these “guides could be linked from one to another so it would be easy for the “newbie” to progress from one level to the next until they were ready to head off on their own.
One blogger cannot do it all so I figure that a group of blogger’s from all different levels might get together and each write up a “guide”. There would be a main set of guides that could be followed in sequence and then sub-guides that could branch off at certain points on other related topics.
Hmmm…..I know this didn’t exactly answer your question but I was on a roll.
Sorry about the long comment again. Will I ever learn?
thanks for the good advice. hopefully I can use it to my advantage.
Wow,I have never read any blog like telling us that has got such a high value than design and anything else and we should let the people come to us by writing good content rather going for them by using short term techniques. thanx a lot
[…] to this blog right now. Some of my articles where I gave out a lot of links (such as “Is Your Content King, or Queen?“) have received attention from some of the A-list bloggers out […]
[…] to this blog right now. Some of my articles where I gave out a lot of links (such as “Is Your Content King, or Queen?“) have received attention from some of the A-list bloggers out there. So if you’re not […]
It’s like a new fashion now…to have a blog! I have many friends that have blogs and ask me to read them, leave comments (I simply hate this: “Check out my new blog, and leave some comments!” ) and usually these are the types of blogs that I will never read, just because I know the person! Usually, the blogs I read… are randomly chosen from Google, for the subject in the post. That’s it!
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Ada - Technology Transfer opportunties
Крутотень!
Честно, давно не читал статью сразу и полностью, не отрывался даже на сообщения из аси. Надеюсь продолжение будет не менее интересным…
Wow. You consider 500 uniques a day to be only ‘fairly’ popular. I have a blog that gets 250-300 a day and I consider that to be quite an achievement for me. lol
True, need something good to read to keep traffic.
Благодарю за занимательную точку зрения. Я с ней не совсем согласен, но она имеет право на существование.
Zoo sex sex….
Online zoo sex sex with zoo zoo sex galleries. Zoo sex….
Ого! Сенкс! Теперь на неделю есть работа!
There is not much quality content being generated these days on most things under the sun, at any rate. People are blogging for money these days, no more and no less.